CGS-2100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: Arithmetic Logic Unit, Central Processing Unit, Hertz
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Use the computer primarily for internet access. Use videos and software, do not create them: power users. Need fast storage and lots of it. Create videos and software programs: mobile users. Need a lightweight device with a long battery life. Happy to sacrifice some functionality for less weight. The cpu fetches the required data or instruction from ram. It decodes the instruction into something the computer can understand. It stores the result in ram before fetching the next instruction: this system is known as a machine cycle and serves as the basic unit of work performed by a processor, factors that affect a cpu"s perfor(cid:373)a(cid:374)ce. Clock speed- how many machine cycles the cpu can perform each second. Measured in gigahertz or billions of cycles per second. Faster clock speeds mean more instructions can be processed in a given time period. Cores- a processor with multiple cores means there are actually multiple processors running on the same chip.
